Part One
You know, I blame the dream. I mean I'm not some bi-curious harlot. And the prickle of my cheeks in David Gandy's underwear section of Marks and Spencer's proves I am certainly no lesbian. So, yes, I blame the dream.
Where did it come from? Why should I, after years of red-blooded cock loving, dream of splaying on an altar (!) with my knickers off and some voluptuous, braided blond between my thighs? And how come her smooth cheeks and slippery fat wriggle of tongue got me wetter than any man's rough gobble? And why, when the impossible minx swivelled around on top of me and straddled my face, did I cum so hard it woke me up? And my husband!
Yes, I'm married. Very. Ok, so Paul is more Clark Kent than Superman – more handyman than Gandy – but he is sensitive when he needs to be and rough when I want him to be, and is tall and strong and makes me feel safe. That's why he's my agent, too, I suppose.
God. My gallery opening. I need to focus on that. Screw the lurid dreams.
The decorators have gone, and the gallery is finally mine and ready for me to hang my work. I have a big slice of delicious, absolute privacy. It might be midnight, but that's when I work best. Usually. If my head isn't full of girl-on-girl.
True, if you know my work, and my method, you might understand the dream thing. I draw nudes over a year, from spring to spring. A celibate year. Yes, I know you lot think a nude is a nude is a nude, but the tension in my work comes from the differences between them. Between the beginning of the process and the end. Pale and precise and balanced compositions give way to hot colour and florid lines and suggestive poses. And yes, it is also true I am at the end of this year's process. And that I am still a relatively young woman. And after months of absolutely no action down below, while drawing all kinds of people in all kinds of disported deportment my brain is very, very naughty. But still, I've never dreamt of admiring a girlfriend's waxing in quite so much... detail.
I've only hung one picture. Well, Paul has. He hid my drawing of him in the darkest part of the gallery behind a column. So I'm surrounded by, taunted by, piles of life-size nudes glowing out of charcoal blackness. Equal numbers of men and women – before you ask – and most of them not that sexy at all, really. Not compared to my heady imaginings, anyway. The opening is tomorrow night. Press in the morning. And here I am lost in lust and damp of gusset.
Oh I've tried... that. I know it's probably against the rules, but the work is done and anyway my fingers aren't enough tonight. And I don't mean I need some great dildo in me. (Though, hmm...) I did cum, but I can never properly scratch my own itch and my multiplied reflection in the glass of the artworks – writhing around with my hands up my skirt – has made me worse. Hornier. It's not about the orgasm, anyway. It's about... Oh I don't know. It's about intimacy and rudeness. Filth. Here in this pristine white cube of space, delicately placing perfectly framed, dry, achingly sincere artworks, I want to be wet and wild. Dirty.
So I blame my dream for the cheeky googles on my phone right now. I started tangentially with Georgia O'Keeffe's blossoms, but that lead quickly to Milo Manara's erotica. Paul tells me I am just like Manara's pouty supermodels and I get cross that he's even looking at them until he reminds me that the year is his sacrifice too! Then I google Beardsley and his "Adoration of the Penis" which puts me in mind of Paul in the morning at this time of year, which doesn't help at all. Then it's Victorian erotica, and lovely labia and it's all downhill after that. Then stills aren't enough. A video slurry of glistening pink folds and holes and heaving boobs and plundering tongues and fingers.
My hands shake and my breath is even quivering a bit. I wish I could press a button and project some of these abandoned tarts onto the floor. Swell them solid with the sight of my arousal. Sit on them. On their pretty, puffing mouths.
Perched on the wide slab of stone – actually an old altar stone – that we use as a bench in the middle of our space, I'm curled over my little hot screen, legs crossed twice over. Jesus, I'm actually growling. And I'm in a seedy place indeed. Both in my head and online. All black and yellow and flickering banner-ads and cream splattered meat.
Some promised link to a video ("I'll make your pussy drip honey on my tongue") has lead me to a blurred face woman. A local phone number. My finger stabs at it before I even blink. My hand shoves the phone to my ear, like: "deal with it." I can hardly hear the ringing over my course breath and heart pounding out of its cage. I want someone to answer quick. Before I lose my nerve. Before my mouth dries out completely.
"Hello!" Someone says.
Oh God, what a voice. Sleepy. Deep. Croaky.
I hang up.
It's only then I notice that the blurred faced woman has platinum blonde braids and I get a shiver of deja vu. I have the machine poised mid fling when it vibrates in my palm. For a second I think: Paul! Yes! he's checking how I'm doing! Maybe he can come over and sort me out! But no. It's not his number. Oh Shit. Callback.
I watch it ring. I bite my lips. I picture the woman on the other end, biting her lips too, maybe. Pouting. Ready and willing. Dripping honey. My phone thrums in my palm like a sex toy. I swallow. Press the red button.
"Y-Yes?" I bleat.
"You just call me, sweetie?"
"Yes."
"A girl, goody! Please don't hang up again. What would you like?"
"..." I want you, bitch.
"Don't be shy. I'll do anything. I love it all. Especially girls. "
I grunt. Just grunt. Like an animal. The woman laughs. I laugh too, but far too loud.
"Dear me," she chuckles, "You're in a quite a state aren't you? If you're local I can come round now, would you like that?"
"Yes."
"O... k. Text me where you want to meet. We'll take it from there, hmm?"
#
So now it's nearly one in the morning and I've been in the shower, like the whole time. I've turned off all the gallery lights, and am hiding beside the door, peering at the security screen. If the woman turns up and seems in any way dodgy I'll pretend there's no-one here. Shit. I don't want to think about what Paul would make of this. And the illicit sigh of air around the nakedness up my skirt? That's not already a betrayal. It's not.
Then there she is. Lord. She's ten years younger than me. In her twenties. Small and round featured. Straight backed and big eyed and plump lipped. Dressed corporately, if the corporation allowed stilettos and no bra under a clingy French polo and a skirt up to your knickers. Her thick eyeliner and thick red lips are wrong on such a fresh face, too. And the platinum braids and large dark eyebrows? More Khaleesi than Courtesan. It all looks like fancy dress. I jump at the buzzer, and turn on the lights.
She bounces on her toes when I open the door, and beams a smile that doesn't quite make it to her eyes. I wonder if it ever does. She might be younger than me but she's seen twenty lifetimes. Her ancient gaze flickers about my face, and beyond, into the gallery. Probably checking if she's safe. Poor thing, she must think I'm some kind of loon.
I falter, unsure whether you greet a prostitute as a lover, or as a businesswoman. I put out my hand. She takes it and pulls us together and she smells of soap and vanilla. Her lips press to my cheek, leaving a little wet love-heart on it. She is too beautiful and too cool to be doing this for a living. In fact, wonder if I'm pretty enough for her. Is she disappointed? I've never been able to trust those that tell me I'm beautiful.
"So now what?" she says. "You want me to do you here?"
She wants to do me. God she wants to do me. She's that confident, she knows she can just do it. Me. Just like that. What does that mean? "Do"? Fingers? Lips? Tongue? Shitting hell I want all of it. Do me. Do me. Do me. The words flash from the bulb of my knickerless clit, glowing through my skirt as I follow the clip-clopping woman into my gallery.
She has a tiny waist, given the flare of her bottom. I wonder if you could ever draw a non-sexual picture of a woman this shape. If I don't stop secretly panting I am going to faint. She runs her fingers along the unhung frames. Charcoal bodies juice and flush.
"Wow, sweetie. this your work? I'm Polly by the way."
And what's with the mockney accent? This girl went to a better school than I did, for sure.
"Izzy. I'm Izzy. Yes. All my own work."
She stops at the only picture on the wall. My cheeks and ears burn. Paul is brazenly nude. The first of the series, and only he and I know that his cock was still wet from me when he posed for it. His recently flagged erection makes for a pleasingly huge dangler. The only reason he lets me show it, I reckon.
Polly makes a purring kind of growl, taking off her jacket and kicking off her shoes. "Well hung, that one," she says, and spins to me. "Get it?"